Prose Assignment 1
Accusations of Conrad’s misrepresentation of women continually perpetuates feminist criticism of his work: his ‘man’s world’ texts are notorious for their exclusion and simplification of female characters, leaving them on the periphery of his fiction. ‘The Secret Agent’ may break this assumption. Significantly, Conrad self-declares the novel ‘Winnie Verloc’s story’ , thrusting a ‘female, working-class protagonist’ into the androcentric spheres of both Victorian London and literature. Considering this, I intend to evaluate Conrad’s claim this is ‘Winnie Verloc’s story,’ analysing her presentation in perhaps the most essential part of the novel – the pages preceding Verloc’s death. These pages signify a fundamental shift …show more content…
Through Winnie’s freedom, however, this sharply sculpted domestic template blurs and she can no longer fit into traditionally assigned Victorian female roles. Conrad presents her as merging into the dark fabric of the ‘black veil hanging like a rag.’ In exchanging the light linen for the dark veil, Conrad highlights Winnie’s rebellious rejection of marital and domestic values symbolised through the white bedding. Conrad’s recurring motif of Winnie’s omnipresent ‘wide-open eyes’ is consequently ironic; it is only in this extract that she becomes metaphorically ‘clear-sighted,’ seeing Verloc for the insensitive husband he is revealed to be and transitioning from a passive observer of the male-dominated action to an active
Accusations of Conrad’s misrepresentation of women continually perpetuates feminist criticism of his work: his ‘man’s world’ texts are notorious for their exclusion and simplification of female characters, leaving them on the periphery of his fiction. ‘The Secret Agent’ may break this assumption. Significantly, Conrad self-declares the novel ‘Winnie Verloc’s story’ , thrusting a ‘female, working-class protagonist’ into the androcentric spheres of both Victorian London and literature. Considering this, I intend to evaluate Conrad’s claim this is ‘Winnie Verloc’s story,’ analysing her presentation in perhaps the most essential part of the novel – the pages preceding Verloc’s death. These pages signify a fundamental shift …show more content…
Through Winnie’s freedom, however, this sharply sculpted domestic template blurs and she can no longer fit into traditionally assigned Victorian female roles. Conrad presents her as merging into the dark fabric of the ‘black veil hanging like a rag.’ In exchanging the light linen for the dark veil, Conrad highlights Winnie’s rebellious rejection of marital and domestic values symbolised through the white bedding. Conrad’s recurring motif of Winnie’s omnipresent ‘wide-open eyes’ is consequently ironic; it is only in this extract that she becomes metaphorically ‘clear-sighted,’ seeing Verloc for the insensitive husband he is revealed to be and transitioning from a passive observer of the male-dominated action to an active